One Piece Every Day is a column where I read a chapter of One Piece every single day—more or less—and discuss my thoughts on it. Each entry will have spoilers up to the chapter covered in that day’s column.

Please keep in mind that many other readers are also first-timers. Do NOT spoil anything beyond this point in the comments!

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After a few chapters in a row where quite a bit happens, today’s is refreshingly straightforward. There’s only two real events that occur here; Mayor Boodle decides to take the fight to Buggy, and Nami allies with—although she’s very hesitant to use words like “join”—Luffy’s crew.

Boodle has a decent motive for wanting Buggy & Co. out of town; he helped build the place!

To me, this entire sequence raises tons of questions, and I’m not sure if they’re questions One Piece is interested in answering. This patch of land is one thing, but in general, where did these people come from? Where have they arrived at? Is this a “Europeans crossing the Atlantic for the first time” situation or something more innocuous? Are there natives? If so, where are they?

Many, many questions, and few answers. Maybe One Piece will eventually answer some or all of these questions, but it’s far from a certainty. For now, at least for me, they’re just something I will keep in the back of my mind.

More importantly, there’s a pretty funny sequence earlier on in the chapter where Mohji, stumbling back aboard Buggy’s ship, tries to warn his captain of the “rubber man”, but passes out halfway through his sentence. This leads to some misunderstandings.

And the chapter also establishes that Chou-Chou is fine. In fact, him ending up back at the shelter tips off the townspeople that their mayor has gone and done something reckless. They are absolutely correct about this, as previously established.

Boodle’s situation would probably be hopeless did he not have some backup; namely, Luffy and a newly recovered Zolo.

And even Nami, in her own way, offers something like support.

And just to not leave anyone out; the mayor himself is no slouch. I haven’t really talked much about Boodle because as someone who’s not even quite 30 yet, the whole “spending 40 years building a community only to have it destroyed” motive is a bit abstract to me. But it is executed well, and that means that at the end of the chapter, when he has a dock-to-ship stare-off with Buggy, he earns being drawn in that classically sketchy shonen style that conveys that someone is about 90% burning justice by volume.

Tomorrow: Luffy’s crew and the iron-willed mayor vs. Buggy the Clown and his circus on a ship.

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